B
BlindSheep
Guest
Sounds like every other homily I’ve heard in Rochester (although they usually mention gays as well).
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K
KBarn
Guest
Penny Plain:
In Exodus, God commanded that His sanctuary be constructed of gold and silver and the finest things. Remember that we are to give God our due respect. If it were characteristic in our culture that clay was preferable to gold, then we would probably be using clay vessels at mass. The fact is, we are to offer sacrifice, and one way we do that is by offering our very best in the service of His worship.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
Sure, I’m serious.
I’ll spell it out. I asked, “Why the gold chalices?”
Verbum Caro responded with this text:
Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.” As I read it, then, Jesus was saying that it was fitting to honor Him with costly things because He wasn’t always going to be with us.
It seems to me that circumstances have changed. He is always with us in the Blessed Sacrament, yes? He’s not going anywhere; “behold, I am with you to the end of time” and all that. So the reasoning that we should honor Him instead of giving to the poor because He’s not always going to be with us doesn’t apply anymore, does it?
Because He’s here, unless I’m missing some sort of heresy in which Verbum Caro is denying the Real Presence.
KBam wrote:
True, no question about that. Don’t we dispense with large portions of Exodus on the grounds that they are merely ceremonial law? Things like not wearing mixed fabrics and stoning disobedient kids, and things like that?
Why are we commanded to follow this?
My thought is that Jesus’s comment about how we will always have the poor with us is a big hint. He says that’s its proper to give honor to Him while He’s here in his human form. (You know what I mean; please revise in your own minds to remove heretical implications.) Once his human form is gone to Heaven (as CollegeKid pointed out), we should turn our attention to the poor.
AndyF, I have no idea what this means.
T
tdandh26
Guest
I am not talking about christians in the generic sense. I am talking about the one Church which Jesus Himself instituted. Jesus forsaw schisms and He said these things must happen but woe to that man who brings schism. Jesus himself says His Church will contain sinners and saints.(see parable of weeds and the wheat). Jesus also knew what would take place. He is God, He sees future events as present. Its not like He would come back visibly to the eye and say “what has happened to My Church?” Jesus is really and truely present within His Church Bodily, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It is the people within the Church who give scandal, not the Church itself. Why should good Catholics who are obedient to the magisterium be lumped in with those who are disobedient?
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tdandh26
Guest
Penny Plain:
Do you think it appropriate consecrate the blood of Christ in a valueless plastic or styrophom cup? Do you think the sanctuary which surrounds the Eucharist should be less than elegant?
K
KnightErrantJR
Guest
There are a couple of problems with the whole idea that we shouldn’t use gold chalices, or that our churches shouldn’t be “fancy” or that the Vatican shouldn’t have any works of art, or all of these other arguements.
The first problem is this starts to fall into the whole protestant idea that nothing is holy or sacred unless the people are present as part of it. Churches aren’t a sacred place set aside, they are only sacred when the people are there. This leads naturally into church doctrine not being sacred unless the people “are there” or agree with it as well. This leads to a lot of verbal tapdancing that says that homosexuality is okay, sex before marriage is okay, abortion is okay, because that is where most of the people “are.” What is holy about church doctrine . . . oh, we should be “tolerant” and “nice” to each other.
Also, what does this say for each of us? Does this mean none of us should have anything more than what we need to survive? Should we all be living in communes, with no personal possesions, sharing everything, with no one having anything more than anyone else? The Puritans tried this when they first got to America, and until they started having personal property, they had a hard time making ends meet because no one wanted to work any harder than anyone else. And this was in a community that was ostensibly filled with Christians devoted to living and sharing everything. We are humans and it doesn’t work that well for us.
Jesus told one rich man that he had to give up everything in his life, his riches, his family, to follow him. But he told Zacchaeus to give up half of what he owned. In other words, he was to break his attatchment to wealth, but in and of itself, it wasn’t evil for him to have some.
The first problem is this starts to fall into the whole protestant idea that nothing is holy or sacred unless the people are present as part of it. Churches aren’t a sacred place set aside, they are only sacred when the people are there. This leads naturally into church doctrine not being sacred unless the people “are there” or agree with it as well. This leads to a lot of verbal tapdancing that says that homosexuality is okay, sex before marriage is okay, abortion is okay, because that is where most of the people “are.” What is holy about church doctrine . . . oh, we should be “tolerant” and “nice” to each other.
Also, what does this say for each of us? Does this mean none of us should have anything more than what we need to survive? Should we all be living in communes, with no personal possesions, sharing everything, with no one having anything more than anyone else? The Puritans tried this when they first got to America, and until they started having personal property, they had a hard time making ends meet because no one wanted to work any harder than anyone else. And this was in a community that was ostensibly filled with Christians devoted to living and sharing everything. We are humans and it doesn’t work that well for us.
Jesus told one rich man that he had to give up everything in his life, his riches, his family, to follow him. But he told Zacchaeus to give up half of what he owned. In other words, he was to break his attatchment to wealth, but in and of itself, it wasn’t evil for him to have some.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
I think it doesn’t matter in the least. The issue is the contents of the cup, not the cup. Who judges a book by its cover?
Do you think the cross on which Jesus died for our sins was less than elegant? Do you think the stable He was born in was less than elegant? Do you think the food He ate, the wine He drank, and the company He kept was less than elegant?
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
So instead we should have as many of these things as possible?
I agree. We should not be nice to each other. We should be as rude as possible. But I’m not sure where this hooks up with gold chalices?
That’s a darn good question? What does it say for each of us? What does it mean, for instance, that what I spend on soft drinks for my family in a year would feed a family of three in Mongolia? Does Jesus have anything to say about my family enjoying a luxury when those resources could be going to preventing people from starving, or to pay for vaccinations against childhood diseases in Africa?
I know what the right answer is. I just don’t like it because it’s not comfortable.
As I remember it, the rich man asked "Rabbi, what must I do to be perfect? Hard question, hard answer. Maybe we don’t have to try to be perfect?
K
KBarn
Guest
The Ten Commandments are found in Exodus. Do we dispense with those? Even if we are to dispense with ceremonial law, we are not to dispense with the moral basis of that law. The ordinance that the sanctuary be constructed of fine things is so that we honor the real presence of God to our greatest capacity. That means we have nice vessels for Eucharist, and it also means that we help the poor. Why is it an either/or proposition? Can it not be a both/and proposition?
M
mikew262
Guest
I agree. I think the priest in question was talking about the Church leadership and some of the current doctrine, not the “Catholic on the street”.
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Penny_Plain
Guest
Clearly we dispense with some things found in Exodus, right? Just saying “Exodus says we should do X” isn’t enough because there are plenty of things in Exodus, Leviticus, and so forth that we obviously are not required to do.
To our “greatest capacity?” Hmm. Not sure I buy that one.
Clearly our capacity to honour the Real Presence is far greater than what we’re actually doing. We spend money on food, for instance, and other fripperies, that could instead be used to buy whacking great emeralds to adorn a platinum chalice. So if it’s true that we’re to honour the Real Presence to our greatest capacity, it would be at the expense of many, many other things that are also important.
Well, for one thing it’s because the poor can’t eat a chalice, and a stained-glass window does very little to help an African child get a measles vaccination. I don’t think the answer is that these things are needed to honour God; “whatsoever you do unto the least of My bretheren, you do unto Me” and all that. It seems to me that God is honoured when we feed His hungry and thereby feed Him. It seems to me that God is honoured when we welcome the stranger to our homes and thereby welcome Him.
I also think that luxury sets the wrong tone. Don’t get me wrong; I have seen the great cathedrals of the world, and I love them. There is no building on earth more beautiful than Sainte Chappelle in Paris, when the sun is out and the colors from the windows dance on the floor like flirting butterflies.
What would The Boss say about Sainte Chappelle? I try not to think about it, because I think the answer would be one I don’t like. It would be: “Why do you need it? You have Me.” And the follow-up question, another hard one: “What could have been done with that money, labour, and talent instead?”
I believe that people are more important than things, even if the people are people I don’t know. I just don’t like the logical conclusion that leads me to.
W
wcknight
Guest
There are other ways of looking at great Churches. One is that the building of these churches employed a great number of people. It put food on the table for those folks for a few years. In some cases for 20 or 30 years.
The other thing is that in some case much of the adornments were gifts from the people themselves. It is what the poor gave up so that they could have a glorious church to attend and invite others to see. They are proud of what they were able to achieve with what little they had.
While we should never forget the poor or the needy, sometimes it is the poor themselves who wish to have a great church built for the greater glory of God.
And in a few cases it was at the request of Our Lady to have a church, chapel or bassilica built. Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Lourdes are two such examples in which the Queen of Heaven herself asked for these things.
The other thing is that in some case much of the adornments were gifts from the people themselves. It is what the poor gave up so that they could have a glorious church to attend and invite others to see. They are proud of what they were able to achieve with what little they had.
While we should never forget the poor or the needy, sometimes it is the poor themselves who wish to have a great church built for the greater glory of God.
And in a few cases it was at the request of Our Lady to have a church, chapel or bassilica built. Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Lourdes are two such examples in which the Queen of Heaven herself asked for these things.
K
KBarn
Guest
Penny,
If we didn’t buy bread and wine for the Eucharist, we would have a whole lot more money to give to poor people. Not to mention candles, chrism oil, etc.
The fact is, the world is sacramental. That means that we need to not only honor the presence of Christ, but also engage people in His worship. The Cure of Ars lived very simply, but he spent a good deal of money on the parish church, and the poor of his parish responded with devotion. St. Thomas Becket wore the spledid dress of an Archbishop while wearing a hair shirt for penance beneath it. Mother Theresa was not against beautiful churches. People need to have some sort of manifestation of God’s glory. It’s just the way we are. It is not a defect in us. We by nature are inclined to Beauty, Truth, Goodness. There are a lot of people that are impressed with the grandeur of churches and moved to spiritual experiences because of it. Is that shallow? Maybe it is. But God meets us where we are. The Incarnation is a prime example of it.
Besides all this, the Church is one of the largest providers of AIDS relief in Africa. It has devoted sons and daughters throughout the world who minister to the most impoverished. You seem to think that we could do a better job without the beauty of churches. I don’t think we could. We need to be inspired, and it is not wrong to want that. Christ was transfigured before the eyes of Peter, John, and James for their edification. They needed to be inspired. Christ revealed His glory after His resurrection to many disciples. They needed to be inspired.
I guess I am not so much of a liberation theologian, but I think the Church can have it both ways.
Kevin
If we didn’t buy bread and wine for the Eucharist, we would have a whole lot more money to give to poor people. Not to mention candles, chrism oil, etc.
The fact is, the world is sacramental. That means that we need to not only honor the presence of Christ, but also engage people in His worship. The Cure of Ars lived very simply, but he spent a good deal of money on the parish church, and the poor of his parish responded with devotion. St. Thomas Becket wore the spledid dress of an Archbishop while wearing a hair shirt for penance beneath it. Mother Theresa was not against beautiful churches. People need to have some sort of manifestation of God’s glory. It’s just the way we are. It is not a defect in us. We by nature are inclined to Beauty, Truth, Goodness. There are a lot of people that are impressed with the grandeur of churches and moved to spiritual experiences because of it. Is that shallow? Maybe it is. But God meets us where we are. The Incarnation is a prime example of it.
Besides all this, the Church is one of the largest providers of AIDS relief in Africa. It has devoted sons and daughters throughout the world who minister to the most impoverished. You seem to think that we could do a better job without the beauty of churches. I don’t think we could. We need to be inspired, and it is not wrong to want that. Christ was transfigured before the eyes of Peter, John, and James for their edification. They needed to be inspired. Christ revealed His glory after His resurrection to many disciples. They needed to be inspired.
I guess I am not so much of a liberation theologian, but I think the Church can have it both ways.
Kevin
5
5-Decades-a-Day
Guest
Penny Plain:
Penny Plain:
Penny Plain:
Beauty in a church or cathedral is not “luxury.”
Penny Plain:
Clearly.
Penny Plain:
Perhaps you should re-read Exodus again. If God is so likely to be offended at all this beauty that is offered for His sake, then perhaps you can explain why He went on at such length specifying how to build the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle tent, the vestments for the priests, etc. Or is that one of the parts of Exodus that we’re supposed to disregard, on your authority?
P
precious_roy
Guest
I sort of agree with Penny here.
To that end, I was upset when I found out that my parish (before I became Catholic) purchased a $500K organ to be constructed. It was the first time that this sort of thing really struck me as odd.
I realized after that day that I did not need the excess things that filled my life. I no longer go out to eat (occasionally, maybe once a month I’ll get fast food when I get stuck at work), don’t buy random garbage, upgrades for my car, waste time watching tv and etc. And when I see some of the extravagances in everyday life it occasionally makes me shudder.
On the other hand, maybe this is what it takes to inspire some people: the elaborate chapels and basilicas, gold chalices and the likes. I think what Penny is pointing out is why do we get to have these things while people in poor third world countries don’t even get a semblance of it? Is it because we have worked hard? I would say no, because I am quite sure that some people who didn’t even have a chance worked much harder than I do. So why? The answer is: I don’t know. As such I cannot mentally cope with myself if I don’t do virtually everything that I can to give everyone of Gods people an equal swing in the batters box.
I think that the real problem here is one of focus. I mean think about what we as a society elevate to the highest level: entertainers, athletes and such. What seems to inspire people is things that are physical when what really should inspire is things that are physical, mental and spiritual: faith, hope and love/charity.
I personally do not need to see beauty in life, to hear harmony, or any of these things to know God. God, simply put, is beauty and harmony because he is God. I know beauty because of what He has done for us with Christ. End of story.
But to some this is not enough, and that is ok too. I just think that we should abide by the old elementary school snack rule: If you bring one for yourself, bring enough to share with everyone.
To that end, I was upset when I found out that my parish (before I became Catholic) purchased a $500K organ to be constructed. It was the first time that this sort of thing really struck me as odd.
I realized after that day that I did not need the excess things that filled my life. I no longer go out to eat (occasionally, maybe once a month I’ll get fast food when I get stuck at work), don’t buy random garbage, upgrades for my car, waste time watching tv and etc. And when I see some of the extravagances in everyday life it occasionally makes me shudder.
On the other hand, maybe this is what it takes to inspire some people: the elaborate chapels and basilicas, gold chalices and the likes. I think what Penny is pointing out is why do we get to have these things while people in poor third world countries don’t even get a semblance of it? Is it because we have worked hard? I would say no, because I am quite sure that some people who didn’t even have a chance worked much harder than I do. So why? The answer is: I don’t know. As such I cannot mentally cope with myself if I don’t do virtually everything that I can to give everyone of Gods people an equal swing in the batters box.
I think that the real problem here is one of focus. I mean think about what we as a society elevate to the highest level: entertainers, athletes and such. What seems to inspire people is things that are physical when what really should inspire is things that are physical, mental and spiritual: faith, hope and love/charity.
I personally do not need to see beauty in life, to hear harmony, or any of these things to know God. God, simply put, is beauty and harmony because he is God. I know beauty because of what He has done for us with Christ. End of story.
But to some this is not enough, and that is ok too. I just think that we should abide by the old elementary school snack rule: If you bring one for yourself, bring enough to share with everyone.
W
Writer
Guest
Our priest made the point that Christ may have been mad at the presence of physical evil which manifested as the disease–ie. mad at the disease itself.
W
Writer
Guest
My wife is preparing to water gild a large frame for a Catholic Church, so I think I have a basis to make a few observations. Art draws our eyes to God, and it sets a tone of reverence and mystery. If one examines the Old and New Testament, there are numerous examples of this. As one relative pointed out, there is more text devoted to explaining the art and decorations which had to be in place in the temple than was devoted to detailing creation itself. Is it a wonder that God, the Creator, would desire us to be creative ourselves? When we step into Protestant churches (in which I was raised), we see nothing but bare, white walls. (If it is Free Methodist, there might also be a makeshift basketball hoop.) We love and worship the same God, but our view reflects the glorious spelendor of our Creator, while the other churches are often pale immitations of what we take for granted.
This is not to say, that the sky’s the limit, but it is to say that the Church should continue to be a place where creative expression in the arts is encouraged. God also loves beauty. There is also an interesting sense where art represents a kind of sacrifice, doing something beyond ourselves. My family, for instance, recently visited the Portland Museum of Art and veiwed many amazing paintings and other religious artwork that were many hundreds of years old. It was inspiring and reminded me of the rich heritage we have as Christians–those painters and artists are still speaking in the language of art across the centuries, pointing our gaze upwards to the beauty of heaven.
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precious_roy
Guest
Right, I understand what you are saying and that everyone feels differently and comes to accept God in a certain way.
So, for example, like I mentioned before I don’t drink anymore. Actually, I can’t drink anymore. It is because one day I was at a bar and I saw a glass of beer someone was drinking and I sort of juxtaposed it with a crying child’s face in Africa for some reason. From that day forward, whenever I was at a bar I couldn’t even see the beer and the happy people anymore, I could only see the starving kids. It sounds weird but it’s just the way I think. And the same goes for me when I see any other costly item.
So it’s just a different way of seeing things; it depends on how God works through your mind.
S
StMarkEofE
Guest
Penny Plain:
Our Lord when He said these words knew His days on earth were numbered and for this reason He allowed the annointing with expensive oil. The poor as we all know have since survived over two thousand years, but His earthly presence we only had for some thirty or so years.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
My point exactly.
So we can draw the lesson from the story of the perfume that her behaviour was fitting while Jesus was alive on earth. Once He left, not so much.
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